Haaretz: Once again Knesset members are trying to promote a bill that would allow Israelis to vote in elections here even when they are overseas. On its face, especially in an era in which technology enables one “to be” in two places at the same time, there is no reason why a citizen who is abroad cannot fulfill his or her democratic right. So why must this law be opposed?
Because in view of the demographic threat – the concern about losing the Jewish majority in this country – the millions of Jews living in the Diaspora, comprising half of the world’s Jews, are an untapped statistical asset that must appeal to doomsayers. Such a law could become a future opening for vote thieves or a magic formula for vote contractors. The unflagging enthusiasm for this law, as shown by its ardent supporters Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, is unsettling.
Coalition parties are obliged to give this bill their automatic support, but opposition Knesset members are also expected to support it, and some of them are even signatories on the bill (Zionist Union’s Itzik Shmuli, Eitan Cabel and Stav Shaffir). The bill’s explanatory notes state that this law exists in most democracies. This is true. However, the uniqueness of the Jewish nationality, with the denial of an Israeli nationality and the clear preference given to Jews by way of the Law of Return, invalidates the comparison of Israel to other countries. Not only is Israel holding 3 million people in the West Bank by force, without citizenship, it also has in its arsenal 7 million potential Jewish citizens as a doomsday electoral weapon.
The Law of Return grants instant citizenship to Jews. Granting voting rights from abroad will encourage Jews to acquire citizenship just for the purpose of voting. This can be done behind the democratic scenes or, in the spirit of these times, through remote granting of citizenship, making do with de jure “return” instead of an actual one.
This will grant much weight, even more than is the case today, to Jews living anywhere, even if they never lived here and have no intention of doing so (except in the event of “another Holocaust”), at the expense of non-Jewish citizens of Israel, in all things relating to the character and future of this country. Sheldon Adelson-style.
The more Israel stresses its affinity to Jews around the world above its commitment to its own citizens, the more it erodes its democratic basis. In doing so it harms not only its non-Jewish citizens but also its Jewish citizens, whose interests do not overlap with those of Jews who don’t live in Israel. Jews around the world will also be affected, with renewed – and this time perhaps justified – accusations of dual loyalty.
The idea of Israel as a shelter for the Jewish people is taking material shape under the leadership of Netanyahu, King of the Jews: Diaspora Jews will decide Israeli elections without having to live here. Meanwhile, in the Jewish condominium, the state of Israel is becoming dirty, dark and neglected, like a typical air-raid shelter in any random apartment building.
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